Cambodia

In 2006, I went to Cambodia. It has come a long way since the days of the Khmer Rouge, but it still remains one of the poorer nations in the world. For all my loyal blog readers out there, I wanted to recap an event that still lives fresh in my mind today. One night, I was outside eating on the patio of a restaurant near my guesthouse. Halfway through my meal, a Cambodian girl came up to me crying hysterically. She was speaking in her native tongue so I couldn’t understand what she was saying but I could tell she wanted some money because she was holding out her hand. I’m not going to lie, I was a bit shocked, and so before I got the chance to act, someone from the restaurant told her to leave. For the remainder of my meal, I sat there wondering about that girl. Why was she crying? Before I left the restaurant, I made it a point to ask the lady who told her to leave why the girl was crying. She told me that her brother was sick and that her family could not afford the pills to keep him alive. A deep pang of regret and sadness came over me at that point. I can’t imagine begging for my life, let alone begging for the life of someone I love.

Would it have killed me to give her a couple dollars? Probably not. I would have spent it on a massage or some beers. People say to me, “Jamie, it’s sad. But stories like that are common throughout the third world. You can’t help everyone.” But I pose a question, “Isn’t one life saved better than no lives saved?”